to know that they are still here and they are still surviving and they are going into the future. >> from booktv's recent trip, this local author tom rea talks about the 1889 lynching of two alleged cattle rustlers in central wyoming. >> we visited the national trail center in casper to learn about the lynching of early wyoming sellers is featured in the book "devils gate: owning the land, owning the story" by author and historian tom rea. >> i wrote this book a few years ago called "devils gate: owning the land, owning the story." it is a landmark on the oregon trail about 60 miles southwest and i first got interested in a country when i was working for the newspaper and they sent me out there to do a feature on how

they were treating the land and i learned that at this time, and it was 25 years ago, that covered may be half a million acres or more and i thought would be interesting to do a book that tracks how a ranch the size got put together over time and what that said about the west. and then eventually turn into this book and that included what a lot of latter day saints were talking about in pioneer times. ..

in this is a longer chapter in my book. this is a more condensed version of what happened and it concentrates on the newspaper coverage of the event so after i wrote the book i got to read more about how these newspapers did it and it struck me the newspapers got some of the newspapers got it so magnificent wrong that it led to a misunderstanding of these events that was not cleared up until 100 years after words. that is what this is about. does that sound interesting? what do you think? all right. saturday, july 20th, 1889, 11 months before wyoming became a state a woman and man were hanged from a pine tree in the central part of the territory

not far from the sweet water river. the woman and the men were homesteaders. the six men who lynch to them were cattle men. news stories about a hanging ran in a cheyenne papers a few days afterwards but the news didn't stop there. similar stories rang in denver, omaha, chicago and new york. the stories that only a few details consistently right. a man and woman were haines near the sweet water river on july 20th. almost other so-called facts printed in these versions, who the victims were, to the venture's work, where the hanging took place and especially why it happened, were wrong and that is the way the launchers wanted. they wanted word to get out as a warning and they never tried to hide their participation in the deep but they were circumspect about their motives. over the next several weeks two newspapers closer to the event, the casper weekly mail landon rollins, the carbon county journal, got most of the details

correct. their reporters did this by interviewing people who had seen something that happens, to use victims personally. because of early information, only the wrong versions became well known. this went out over the news wires and were picked up by papers around the nation. by the 1920s writers looking back to the events already accepted those incorrect versions as fax. historians writing in the 1940s, 50s and 60s rely in turn on these 1920s accounts as well as the regional false versions from shy and. the false facts after a while seemed truer than ever. finally in the 1990s two manager history writers published books on the subject, the real characters, published books, the real characters of the hanging victims and more complicated motives of the murderers became

clear. these riders went back to the 1889 stories in the casper and rollins papers and were first to go back to the records of who don't exactly what land along the sweet water in the 1880s. finally they found something like the truth. ever heard of fracking? okay. the facts as far as we can tell eyes these. a former soldier, cloak, surveyor and rancher stocked a store in the spring of 1884 with the road from rollins to buffalo, wyoming, territory across the sweetwater river. this was a few miles downstream from independence rock which there is a real imagining of pioneers going past that. also on east/west of the old oregon trail the famed emigrant road. did everybody sees that matt? the oregon trail, northern most

of the east/west routes, more heavily traveled is the union pacific railroad across the southern part of the map which was finished in 1869. casper did not exist yet. the rollins to buffalo road was one of the main roads north of union pacific to the power river basin north of wyoming filling up with cattle from buffalo to the northern part of the state down south to rollins and the southern part went through casper and right past jimmy's store. the cattle business was booming, april's location would be a good place to serve local customers. he followed a quarter section, 160 acres of land and doug an irrigation ditch. was at various times postmaster, notary public and justice of the peace. helen watson, ten years younger, joined the monthly water in spring of 1886.

she was from kansas where she married at 18 and divorced her abusive husband two years later. here she is with her first husband from western history center. april probably -- they followed that spring to a marriage license but when they actually got married is unclear. when they got married is unclear. by the summer of '89 he had a store, a house, stable, icehouse and chicken coop on the property. this are low, small, dare rude buildings. it was also a 7. would have sold cartridges, bacon, flour, coffee and whiskey. and 16 feet square. in april, filed back-to-back quarters section land claims about two miles north from where it joins near june's store. t-bills one cabin, perhaps two on that land and fenced 60 acres of pasture and and 50 head of

cattle in the summer of 1889. she also helped run the store. this is per cabin, recently surfaced photo in the last two years. that picture was taken in 1912. let me tell you about a six cattle men involved that day. he worked as an army scout, across vector and began ranching at devil's gate in the 1870s about eight miles up from april's store. french canadian came to wyoming about the same time the railroad did in the 1860s. in 1883 he married the young irish woman. by 1889 they had two children. john and his brother tom ranch that to sweep water, their ranch was by far the largest. they also a don't interest in meatpacking plants and chicago cattle marketing business.

albert -- the old man with a bunch of his sons and other relatives -- albert bought well first came to this we water valley looking for mining, ranching and real-estate opportunities. he acquired the 76 ranch with its headquarters less than a mile from april's for but did not start running cattle until summer of 1880. he had a reputation for a bad temper. that summer he and a group that investors formed the company and found the town of bought well west of what synapse cabins for high prices. the town was described as having a storage blacksmith shop, post office and newspaper, the sweet water chief and indicated the railroad would soon link with sweet water valley casper. if anyone ever finds a copy of the sweet water chief please send it to me. robert connor ranch a few miles

from watson. robert connor, the fifth guy was eventually from eastern pennsylvania where his stepfather made a fortune in the local business. robert galbraith, a well-known railroad mechanic from rollins and a member of the territorial legislature who visited sweetwater in july at 1889 to buy a herd of cattle. i don't have a picture of mclean, a cowboy who worked for john durbin. i will tell you more about the cattle business. what was going on, for a few years in the early 1880s some people made a lot of money in the cattle business in wyoming. soon there were too many cattle, mostly unbranded and cattle thieves, rustlers, to the advantage of this confusion. with so many cattle coming to market prices began to fall. much of the range had been overcreated. then came one or two hot dry summers and winters so bad it is so famous. thousands of cattle died.

many ranchers quit. prices stayed low and it was still oversgray's. cattle theft was widespread in the belief wrestlers were seldom or never convicted circulated even more widely though at least one scholar who tested the claim against court records found it was exaggerated. in any case these problems may business card for all ranchers. nearly all the land still belonged to the government. to control the range where their cattle graze ranchers needed only to control the water. that is it was necessary to own only small scraps of land with springs or creeks on them. when people like watson and able came along, pastures for their small herds digging irrigation ditches to water their gardens or building stores. upset familiar ways of using the land. the owners of large herds didn't like it. botwe botwellapproached what about buying her land but she refused every time. this would having heard him.

april was a surveyor familiar with land law. james averell and watson questioned the legality of bourb bourbon's and conner's land claims and in february of '89, james averell wrote to the casper weekly meal, the brand new so-called town of botwell was a scam, quote, just a geographical expression without a single house. botwell and his investors would have been infuriated but james averell was right. the carbon county journal noted a few years later that there was a, quote, shack where its newspaper was published. botwell and his customers needed customers, the paper was there to advertise the tent. twice each year ranchers got to get it to wind up the cattle. in the spring they cut house out from the rest.

they separated from others and drones and some to the road and shift to market. to the sweet water ended july 19th, 1889, with the branding eight miles west of watson's cabins on horse creek on what is now the dumbbell ranch. durbin's son and botwell had been talking for months about what to do about james averell and ella watson. on july 20th, durbin's son, botwell, and maclean wrote east toward horse creek, the rest were on horseback. they stopped at the office of the sweetwater chief where they found conner talking with his newspaper editor and a six. a road to what some's ranch with a tour down her fence and let her cattle out and threaten to kill her unless she got in the buggy. she got in the buggy. they headed southward james averell's for that met him first

driving toward casper for supply. at gun point they forced him into the buggy. to stay out of sight of the store they took a roundabout route to the sweetwater river and headed west upstream for two miles. a friend of james averell's name frank buchanan followed them a safe distance. finally they left the river and headed up a gulch in the rocky hills south of independence rock, got close enough to see james averell and ella watson standing on a large rock under a pine tree. buchanan got close enough to see them on a large rock, two variants slung over the biggest branch. a rope was around james averell's neck. ella watson was trying to keep mcclain from getting the other rope around her neck too. he fired his revolver until he ran out of bullets. they fired back with rifles. buchanan fled and road as far as

he could to the ranch of a man named haley who wrote the next morning with the news. man or woman he reported had been hanged in here this weekwater river. buchanan had not reported it but his report proved correct when a coroner's jury found them monday morning still hanging and cut them down. all six clinchers were named in the first of two corner's inquests. five were charged with the crime and made bail by signing security bonds for each other. they had died and three of his left the territory. the case was dropped through lack of evidence. double lynching randy all capital headline in the cheyenne daily sun the tuesday after the crime. james averell the newspaper reported kept a hard ranch, watson had added a prostitute

lived with him and recently figured in the dispatch of the cavalcade. a much larger story in the cheyenne daily leader the same day charged james averell, quote, living with him as his wife with cattle stealing. the rangers at her chorale held 50 head of sears, they decided they had to act, 10 to 20 men in this version snuck up on the cabin. inside, ella watson and james averell were playing cards and drinking whiskey. the leader station demanding the right lead each window and led a rush on the door, the paper says. hands up sounded with the sound of rifles leveled at the assorted pair. they were hand from the limb of a cottonwood tree by the riverbank, james averell supposedly wind and begged for his life, the other stayed defined and died with curses on

her foul lips. among all these inaccuracies and exaggerations perhaps most interesting audubon's surrounding watson's name. confused over the notorious and fictitious prostitute named kate and maxwell was west of casper. there was a news story earlier that year about the theft of money from a gambler. a cavalcade was used earlier about maxwell but there's no evidence was abused about what some in her lifetime. a close reading of the story in the daily leader shows there is no name for what now all nor does it call her a prostitute. even though the other shy and paper, the sun, completely reversed its tone and gave a fairly factual muscle in his second story on july 24th, the charge that she was a prostitute and the name cattle kate have

stuck ever since. as long as there have been crimes criminals have tried to avoid responsibility by making it look as though the victims deserve what happened to them. this seems to be with the cattle men were doing. word of the painting said the daily leader, killed by special courier, a writer. the news was telegraphed to george henderson who happen to be in the capital, cheyenne, the paper reported. henderson was at the 71 ranch on sweetwater and a friend of james averell and botwell. henderson was sympathetic with the minister's and thought years later that henderson was partly involved. durbin arrived in rollins the sunday afternoon after the lynching and took the train to cheyenne. this would have put him in shy and in time to work with henderson to make sure the papers printed a version the

cattle men liked. the results writes daniel metz the, the scholar who has looked at these questions, was a publicity campaign for the management of the story from that point upon was nothing less. the campaign was immediately successful thanks to the news wires. the sy and paper's version went national with a story in the new york world the same day. three weeks later the national police gazette which you are looking at here, the national enquirer of its time went much farther. a blaspheming bought bristly boosted blanche word, ran its headline, with a full page with dramatic illustration this of the capture and death. this was also from the casper college history center. in the lower right hand corner, you can see the victims being

led to their deaths on horseback, hanging in the center upper left, in the far upper left, drinking whiskey and in the upper right you see the brave vigilantes' breaking down the door with thae acts. news versus history. made limited headway beyond the limited readership. they talked to people who knew what happened. the suite to papers were claiming land disputes, not cattle theft, were what the lynching was about. people a fair grew out of land troubles, james averell's friend told in a story published a week after the binging, quote, james averell had contested the land they trying to hold, he made durbin some trouble on a final proof, this happens before public land can become private

land. and the entire suitewater is valid, james averell favored selling of these lands in small ranches, botwell wanted the old country and said rich men do not need to obey the law. the land records largely support buchanan's claims. as for botwell's ambitions in the next few years he absorbed james averell and ella watson's claims into his own ranch. as so often happens the most noted version of the story had the most staying power over time. banker john play, george anderson's boss, was an influential, well-connected man and a good writer. in the early 1920s he wrote in his memoir my life on the range, that watson, quote, known as carol kate, with the process of the lowest type, and when james averell and a man called you can wear her interlopers and a man called buchanan or her intimates she was a common property of the

cowboys for miles around. and when mocha wrote his history in 1922, he wrote that it was watson who ran a hard branch. she had taken the name of kate maxwell and was known as cattle kate. later writers picked up on that version than university of wyoming professor published his history in 1965 he was careful to separate fact from allegation. ella watson was variously described as a prostitute and james averell's para more. she accepted stolen cattle from cowboys in return for her favors. post 1966, a pharaoh, lively history of the so-called johnson county war, when 50 wyoming ranchers and hired texas gunman invaded johnson county in 1892

in northern wyoming to kill wrestlers. the ella watson james averell lynching delayed the invasion argues huntington smith and she severely criticized the cheyenne papers but even smith writes she was a prostitute who accepted recompense for her favors in the form of stolen yearlings and may have gotten in deeper. that is the accusation against her. what some may have been a prostitute. there is no way to know for sure but by the time she was hanged all recorded actions taking of a homestead claim, protesting the illegal claims of her neighbors, buying of brand for cattle, signing a political petition and applying for a marriage license show her as a woman who wanted to own land and be secure and wasn't shy about her ambitions. these character traits may have been what got her killed. as wyoming 89 moved at your towards statehood the lynching

made them nervous, must've made everyone nervous for that matter. here they were living in the only territory or state that allowed women to vote. at the same time they were living in the only territory or stay where a woman was ever hanged from the branch of the 3. it is a troubling pair of fax. papers owed it to their readers to get facts right the first time. historians so to their readers to collect -- correct earlier errors. it is never too late to get things right. there you go, thank you. [applause] >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to casper, wyoming and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles go to c-span.org/localcontent. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. here is our prime time lineup

for tonight. at 7:00 p.m. eastern julie green talks about the construction of the panama canal which opened aug. fifteenth 1914. at 7:45, wayne allen routes argues the obama administration and its allies are destroying the middle-class. and 9:15 booktv visits ucla to talk with historian joyce appleby about her latest book shores of knowledge. at:00 eastern the weekly standard's daniel halpern discusses his book clinton inc. with juan williams on after words lead at 11:00 p.m. hour prime-time programming continues with michael malone's book at the tech company intel and the men who created it. that happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> i was never going to stop driving my car except one day i was driving home and going down georgia avenue and i was a half mile from my apartment and my car all of a sudden caught on

fire and i didn't know what to do so i just quickly rolled my window down and unlocked my seat belt and kept driving my car and managed to get it home and whipped it into the parking lot behind my building and jumped out of the car and after is that they my car never drove again. i felt terrible about it and since have the heart to call a tow truck and have them come and drive my for car away so i kept out back. and i was reading the washington post and they had this article about local eyesores. at the end of the article there was a query, do you know of an eye sore? if you do let us know and we will send a reporter out to write about it and i thought yes, i know and i sort, it is parked out back so i thought i

would not buy the boat washington post reporters with my tragic car story, and i wrote it up and sent it into the post and then went out with some friends, and then i went home and there was a message on my machine, and he said he loved my story. if i had anything else, i should just go and send it in. and here is a person taking the bus. whenever something funny would happen, it was to the washington post and i was really lucky, it got my feet wet.

this book never would have happened, i never would have happened to this book if my car hadn't caught on fire on georgia avenue. mostly i was lucky, it gave me an outlet. at this time things at walter reed started to get hot. at first we mostly saucing the leg and duties and patients who lost their legs below the knees. as the wars went on the injuries steadily got worse and worse. we went from saying single leggett duties to most patients who were double and triple and duties meaning they had lost two legs and an arm. we watch the amputations move of the body. they went from being below the knees and below the elbow to above the knees and the fis,

above the elbow. we saw a patients the started to lose their legs that the growing and even started to see patients with partial public amputations. by the time walter reed closed in 2011 almost all of our new patients would double or triple in duties and we had rehabilitated three men who had lost all four of their limits. but i was lucky because i had a hobby after work that forced me to sort of look for the funny side of life and all of my co-workers who made it through those years at walter reed had some sort of outlet whether it was baking cakes or training for 100 mile running races or even keeping up with the highly complicated world of celebrity news and all of us shared a very dark sense of humor. >> you can watch this and